Slashdot Mirror
Compound From Olive-Pomace Oil Inhibits HIV Spread
Researchers in Madrid are claiming that they have discovered that a type of wax found in olive skin can help to slow the spread of HIV. "Their work shows that maslinic acid - a natural product extracted from dry olive-pomace oil in oil mills - inhibits serin-protease, an enzyme used by HIV to release itself from the infected cell into the extracellular environment and, consequently, to spread the infection into the whole body. These scientists from Granada determined that the use of olive-pomace oil can produce an 80% slowing down in AIDS spreading in the body."
My hand does not have HIV, so i fail to see the relevance.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Yikes, there are so many problems with this arguments I don't know where to begin. But, whether you're trolling or not, it's a commonly stated one, so I'll answer it (at least in part).
Regardless of how you define "moral behavior," many cases of AIDS are spread through "moral behavior." People get it from their spouse, when neither of them knew the spouse had it. The spouse might have gotten it from a previous partner, or a blood transfusion problem (fortunately rather rare now). What about the child who contracts it from their mother?
Whether sex outside of marriage is moral or not is a matter of personal interpretation. Certainly much of society views it as normal. Many people have a single monogamous relationship at a time, but more than one through their lifetime. Is that so immoral that we should condemn them to die because of it?
There is no evidence of "recruitment" by homosexuals. Rather, there is a mounting body of evidence that people become homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual as a result of factors beyond their control -- both genetic and environmental. This, combined with ample of evidence of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, would seem to imply that homosexuality is quite natural -- and that therefore the classification of it as immoral is a rather odd invention of mankind.
As to why AIDS gets so much funding -- it's a horrible disease, with a near-100% fatality rate. It infects a staggering number of people. It is currently busy depopulating much of sub-Saharan Africa (where, by the way, the primary mechanism of spreading is between married partners and from mother to child). Diseases that are epidemic in scale, have exceedingly high fatality rates, and which we don't know how to cure should scare anyone. Hopefully all this research will be helpful if another such disease appears.
The HIV virus is a very interesting virus. Of all the common viruses, it is one of most deadly and the hardest to cure. It kills millions of people every year. Which other virus is doing that? Please tell me. This is why it is interesting for study. Most of other infectious diseases people are dying of can be cured with antibiotics, but people never get them.
.. you should know that curing AIDS will save many heterosexual and monogamous women's lives in Africa (you and your preacher should be interested in that right?). These are innocent women who's husbands cheated on them with prostitutes. Also importantly, treating AIDS will enable children in Africa to grow up with mothers and/or fathers.
When the next viral pandemic hits, we want to make sure we know all about how to quickly and effectively deal with it.
Cancer and heart disease do get more funding than AIDS (as they should). Although it's pretty sad that I have to mention this
PS> Why don't you stop hating? The venom is eating away your rational thoughts.
I'm always skeptical of people who classify Spain as "third world".
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm a homosexual and I've been HIV+ for 11 years now. Lucky for me, I'm one of the small percentage of people with whom the virus seems to have a difficult time spreading. As such, in those 11 years I have yet to take any medication.
Now with that out of the way, I must stress that as a homosexual I am completely and utterly uninterested in converting ANYONE to my lifestyle. Nor have I ever in my 13 years of being 'out' even tried to 'convert' anyone. I would think that you would find this true of most any homosexual that you'd care to talk to.
With that said, I have yet to collect a toaster oven.
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek